HYDRA
HYDRA is a terrorist-military organization bent on world domination. It was founded shortly after the rise of Nazism in Germany by Johann Schmidt as the scientific branch of the Nazi Schutzstaffel. Its main purpose was to create advanced weaponry for the German armies, but over the years, members of HYDRA became loyal only to Schmidt himself. At the beginning of World War II, HYDRA still fought for the Nazi cause, but in 1943, Schmidt separated HYDRA from Nazi Germany to start his own conquest of the world. After its defeat at the hands of Captain America in 1945 and the subsequent disappearance of Johann Schmidt, HYDRA was secretly rebuilt inside S.H.I.E.L.D. by Schmidt's top scientist Arnim Zola who was recruited into the agency during Operation Paperclip. After Zola's death in 1972, HYDRA was taken over by Baron von Strucker who continued to lead the organization into the 21st century. Under his leadership, the agents of HYDRA managed to infiltrate many important organizations, including the United States Senate. History Foundation and First Actions HYDRA has its roots in the special weapons division of the Nazi Sturmabteilung. Led by Ernst Kaufmann, the division was charged with developing advanced weapons for the German army. In June 1934, during the , Kaufmann was killed by the SS officer Johann Schmidt. Schmidt and his men eliminated Kaufmann's entire unit, except one man, Dr. Arnim Zola. Schmidt took over Kaufmann's weapons program and formed his own SS division, naming it HYDRA.Captain America: First Vengeance, Volume 2 HYDRA was named after the mythological creature and used its original phrase: "cut off one head, two more will take its place". It was soon charged with science experiments and deep investigation of the occult. Due to contributions from Arnim Zola, HYDRA developed several extremely advanced weapons.Captain America: The First Avenger When the started in 1936, the leaders of the Third Reich decided to support the led by . HYDRA was among the German units sent by Adolf Hitler to assist the Nationalists on the battlefield. In April 1937, HYDRA's armored vehicles and soldiers equipped with powerful exo-skeleton battle suits destroyed the city of Guernica. At the time, it was believed the German air force, the , was responsible for the destruction of the city. However, the footage of the slaughter was smuggled out of Germany by the British agent Margaret Carter and handed over to the US military in January 1940.Captain America: First Vengeance, Volume 5 World War II The Nazi Science Division In 1939, World War II broke out. HYDRA's leader Johann Schmidt actively participated in the Nazi conquest of Europe. Though the United States of America weren't yet involved in the war, Schmidt knew that was only temporary. In 1940, HYDRA assassins attempted to kill the American industrialist Howard Stark, but with the help of Colonel Chester Phillips, Stark was able to defeat the attackers, and decided to join the Strategic Scientific Reserve.Captain America: First Vengeance, Volume 3 That November, at Castle Kaufmann in the , Schmidt injected himself with Abraham Erskine's Super Soldier Serum. He expected to become the superior man, but the unstable serum disfigured his face and turned him into a super strong megalomaniac villain. Erskine escaped with the help of Agent Peggy Carter, Colonel Phillips, and Stark. Adolf Hitler gave Schmidt a military base in the Alps, which he turned into a headquarters of HYDRA. Over time, HYDRA members became more loyal to Schmidt than the Third Reich. Immediately after the start of the war, HYDRA began building several factories across the Nazi-occupied Europe. By 1942, they had factories in Germany, Austria, France, Greece, Poland, Italy, and Czechoslovakia. They used captured Allied soldiers to work in factories. They even had a U-boat base somewhere on the Mediterranean.Captain America & Thor: Avengers! The Rise of HYDRA In March 1942, HYDRA stormed a castle in Tønsberg, Norway where the mystical object known as the Tesseract was buried 531 years ago by Odin. Schmidt saw to it that the Tesseract would be used to its full potential by Arnim Zola. Zola's outlandish designs of robotic power armor, massive vehicles and energy weapons and armor could find a functional use thanks to the Tesseract's power, and with the most advanced technology in the world, HYDRA began their conquest that counted Berlin in its targets. Soon, HYDRA's goals would be challenged by America's own super-soldier, Captain America. In November 1943, Rogers attacked the HYDRA factory in Austria, and managed to free all Allied soldiers who were imprisoned there. This was the first direct conflict between Rogers and Schmidt, who activated self destruct mode and escaped in the experimental plane. Aided by his best friend, Bucky Barnes and the Howling Commandos, Captain America began a massive assault on HYDRA forces across the Axis lines, destroying numerous bases. During the first months of 1944, when the German air force launched the last "Blitz", Schmidt sent a group of HYDRA agents to London to steal some blueprints from the SSR. The agents were successful, but they were soon discovered and chased by Captain America who managed to capture all of them.The Avengers: The Avengers Initiative In May 1944, the HYDRA submarine Leviathan destroyed an Allied merchant freighter in the Mediterranean with HYDRA's thunder lance torpedo, but Captain America, who was traveling on the sunken ship, boarded the submarine and captured it. Cap and Commandos infiltrated the HYDRA U-base where they discovered that the mysterious "Hydra serum" merged the entire base's staff into one octopus-like creature. Cap took the creature to Howard Stark to separate it back into individual men. In April 1944, HYDRA took possession of an old castle on an island in the Nazi-occupied Danish Straits. Schmidt was interested in that castle because of an ancient Viking runestone that was hidden there. The same month, Captain Rogers and the Howling Commandos invaded the castle. Schmidt attempted to destroy them through his "vita batteries" but they survived. Shortly after the Allied invasion of Normandy, in Baron Zemo's castle in Bavaria, Johann Schmidt attempted to activate the Sleeper, a giant robot powered by the Tesseract, but the machine was destroyed by Captain America.Captain America: Super Soldier Captain America's actions against HYDRA were crowned when he succeeded in capturing Arnim Zola. Defeat In May 1945, Schmidt was ready to launch the offensive that would change the face of the planet. However, his base was attacked by the US Army detachment led by Captain America and Colonel Chester Phillips. Outnumbered, Schmidt's men were defeated, but not before he flew away in his Tesseract-powered bomber, the Valkyrie. He intended to nuke all bigger cities in America. Captain America managed to board the plane and came face to face with Schmidt. When it became clear that Rogers was gaining the upper hand in the fight, Schmidt attempted to use the power of the Tesseract with his bare hands. This only resulted in a beam of light, similar in design to the Bifrost Bridge, which caused Schmidt to disappear, and forcing Rogers to put the bomber plane down in the freezing waters below, freezing himself solid and causing the Tesseract to be lost to the seas. Rebirth After The War In the aftermath of World War II, the United States started Operation Paperclip, a program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States and deny their scientific expertise and knowledge to the Soviet Union. As part of the operation, Zola was recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D., the newly formed peacekeeping organization.Captain America: The Winter Soldier Many other former Nazis and HYDRA scientists escaped to South America, hoping to hide from justice. Several of them were employed by the government of Peru to make the new Tesseract-powered weapon. The government wanted to use the weapon against the rebels, but due to the temporal instability of the Tesseract energy, the weapon ended up stuck in the undiscovered Incan temple.Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 1.02: 0-8-4 Various HYDRA operatives who escaped justice after World War II infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. shortly after the agency was formed, working secretly in their ranks. Over the next decades, HYDRA worked from the shadows, directing their agents to complete the tasks that were assigned. Toward the New World Order Shortly after the war, Arnim Zola found Sergeant James Barnes, Captain America's war-time partner who was presumed deceased after falling to an icy death from Zola's train in 1945. Zola and other scientists took Barnes to one of HYDRA's secret bases, presumably in the territory held by the Soviet Union, where they replaced his lost left arm with the new cybernetic limb. They brainwashed him, and since he was already injected with another version of the Super Soldier Serum, they turned him into the new fist of HYDRA. Though he was wearing the communist red star on his new limb, Barnes never fought for the Soviet ideals, instead becoming HYDRA's best assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Over the next decades, he did much on creating chaos in the world, assassinating those who could pose a threat to HYDRA's goals, and spending time between missions in cryogenic sleep. With S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources, Zola managed to build an entire computer system which his mind was uploaded into as an artificially intelligent user interface. Though Zola's body died in 1972, his mind continued to live in cyberspace, from which he was able to provide easy passage into the agency for more HYDRA sleeper agents. HYDRA also oversaw the Deathlock Project in 1990, using one of their sleeper agents, John Garrett, as the first test subject. He was the first Deathlok. However, only the cybernectic components worked. The organs were severely effected, leading Garrett to look for a solution to perfect Deathlok and to prevent his slow-coming death.Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 1.21: Ragtag The HYDRA weapons and technology captured by the SSR during the war were studied by S.H.I.E.L.D.. In 2011, S.H.I.E.L.D. started a program called "Phase 2". The program involved reactivating the HYDRA weapons with the Tesseract for use against super-powered or other-worldly forces. Several cases of HYDRA weapons were stored aboard the Helicarrier. However, the weapons weren't needed, because when the Chitauri led by Loki invaded New York City, the aliens were defeated by the Avengers.The Avengers The "Clairvoyant" Following the Battle of New York, one of HYDRA's sleeper agents within S.H.I.E.L.D., John Garrett, going under the alias, the Clairvoyant,Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 1.17: Turn, Turn, Turn, recruited and funded the Centipede Project to provide them with super-soldiers and to help keep himself from dying. One of the first was Mike Peterson.Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 1.01: Pilot In his Clairvoyant persona, Garrett made people like Ian QuinnAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 1.14: T.A.H.I.T.I. and RainaAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 1.11: The Magical Place believe that he could see everything such as what the President dreams about. Garrett also had another sleeper agent, Grant WardAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 1.18: Providence, recruited by Phil Coulson for his team. Ward's mission was to find out about Coulson's revival. Garrett then had Coulson captured''Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 1.10: The Bridge'' and interrogated for three days to find the secrets behind his revival in Tahiti. Garrett then ordered Quinn to shoot Skye.Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 1.13: T.R.A.C.K.S. He then made sure that he would be the one to take Quinn in, and to have Coulson lead him to where he was revived. After getting inside, unbeknownst to Coulson and Leo Fitz, he took a few of the drugs and hid them in his vest before the place was destroyed. He then had Mike Peterson, going under the codename "Deathlok", turned into a cybernetic super soldier.Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 1.16: End of the Beginning S.H.I.E.L.D. Civil War Project Insight Two years after the Battle of New York, the HYDRA infiltration was finally exposed when corrupted senior official Alexander Pierce attempted to activate Project Insight early. The operation was thwarted by the combined efforts of Captain America, Black Widow, Falcon, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury and Deputy Director Maria Hill but the event left S.H.I.E.L.D. in shambles and resulted in the deaths of many HYDRA agents. The Age of Miracles .]] Despite the failure of Project Insight, HYDRA continued with its operations, with figure leader Wolfgang von Strucker placing his attention on superpowered twins Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. John Garrett, after escaping Agent Victoria Hand's custody with the aid of fellow HYDRA agent Grant Ward, continued to work on the Centipede Project at the HYDRA base in Havana, Cuba. Garrett then raided the Fridge, stealing many items such as the Peruvian 0-8-4, the Berserker Staff, and the Gravitonium. They also freed a number of prisoners. Ultimately, his branch of HYDRA was defeated by the combined efforts of Phil Coulson, his team, and Nick Fury, with their prisoners also freed and most of the stolen items recovered.Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: 1.22: Beginning of the End Paraphernalia Weapons .]] At first, the soldiers of HYDRA were armed with standard weapons of the German armed forces of World War II. Many HYDRA troopers were armed with the MP 40 submachine guns. Johann Schmidt himself used the . HYDRA's assassins like Heinz Kruger were armed with the s. HYDRA's sharpshooters were armed with Mauser Karabiners. Even before they harnessed the power of the Tesseract, the scientists of HYDRA developed several advanced weapons, like the flamethrower. But with the power of the Tesseract, the HYDRA scientists invented the advanced rifles, pistols, and cannons. These weapons were able to vaporize HYDRA's enemies in a single shot in battle. By the beginning of the twentieth century, thanks to its infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA could rely on all weapons available to S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. All sorts of rifles, machine guns, handguns, and heavy weapons could be found in HYDRA's arsenal. Equipment used by HYDRA.]] HYDRA used a variety of advanced vehicles. Thanks to the scientists like Arnim Zola, members of HYDRA could rely on armored vehicles equipped with flamethrowers, armored personnel carriers, experimental planes, futuristic exo-skeleton battle suits, submarines, gigantic tanks, flying bombs, motorbikes, and giant vehicles like the Leviathan submarine or the Valkyrie bomber. Uniforms As the SS divison, HYDRA mostly used the standard grey and black uniforms of the Schutzstaffel. They also used the standard German .Captain America: First Vengeance, Volume 1 Their ranks insignia was identical to that of the SS. However, to distinguish themselves from other SS units, they wore HYDRA badges on their caps and collars, instead of the SS rune patches and Totenkopf badges. They also had HYDRA patches on the upper parts of their sleeves and cuff titles with Gothic style script on the lower parts. Some members of HYDRA also used armbands similar to those of the Nazi party. However, their armbands had the HYDRA logo instead of the swastika. Some HYDRA helmets had no insignia, but others had German Imperial tricolor shield decals and HYDRA shield decals. After 1943, soldiers of HYDRA adopted new, futuristic-styled green uniform. The same uniform, but in black color, was used by HYDRA's special troops and the crew of the Valkyrie. However, the old uniforms were still used by some troops, particularly those that guarded Castle Zemo in 1944. By the 2010s, HYDRA mostly used standard combat camouflage uniforms that were used by almost every army in the world. If the situation required, HYDRA's agents would masquerade themselves as civilians or policemen to easily approach and eliminate their targets. Known Members World War II Era Members Modern-Day Members Centipede Project Trivia *In the comics, HYDRA was organized by Baron Wolfgang von Strucker in the Japanese-occupied territory in the final days of World War II. *In the animated series of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, HYDRA was led by Baron Zemo during World War II. After the war, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker took command of the organization. *HYDRA's abandonment of the Nazi cause is more elaborated in a Deleted scene from Captain America: The First Avenger where a HYDRA Tank fires at regular German troops before it captures the future Howling Commandos. However, that scene contradicts the events of Captain America: First Vengeance, Volume 6 where HYDRA still works for the Nazis after the imprisonment of the Howling Commandos. *HYDRA appears briefly in X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Official Game. References External Links * * Category:HYDRA Category:Organizations